"Observations of Adapting Instruction for Different Learners"

In this writing class all of the students were labeled as gifted and one was labeled as special needs as well as gifted. Each student was at a different level of intelligence, some were extremely gifted and others needed a little help to get to that level. The extremely gifted students preferred to work alone and not in groups, but were the first to offer to read their work to the class. The special needs student was extremely brilliant but did not associate with the other students at all. He sat all the way in the back of the room and frequently confided in the teacher, the teacher's assistants, and even myself. Because this was a writing class and students were encouraged to be creative, the work was not modified for the exceptionally gifted students of for the special needs student. The teacher was more understanding and lenient when the special needs student presented his work. When the extremely gifted students presented their work, the teacher did not overly praise them. This class was full of options and creativity was encouraged, I do not believe that the class was differentiated or that the lesson should have been redesigned. If there was anything that the teacher could have done differently it would have been to try and get the extremely gifted students and the special needs student to work with the groups to better themselves and to help the other students. This may have made the special needs student feel more comfortable with other students and the gifted students could have given assistance to the other students to balance out the different levels of intelligence in the class. Students were allowed to work in groups, but did not have to and they were given a lot of freedom when writing their stories. The teacher's techniques seemed to be effective with dealing with extremely gifted students and special needs students.

Option 2 Learning Differences
1 Hour Observation
Gifted Youth Program Writing Class